Obsession.

Obsess
(verb) preoccupy or fill the mind of (someone) continually, intrusively, and to a troubling extent. (Apple Dictionary)

After spending most of the weekend editing my reviews for Jacques Guerlain’s “Grand Quartet”, my main contribution to my blog in the last couple of days was the change in the subtitle of this blog.

I often wonder about the relationship I have with the elusive phenomenon of perfume. I learned to realize that smelling and wearing perfumes is my greatest passion, studying and collecting data about perfume (including the collection of essences and perfumes, of course) has become an incurable obsession. The fruitful result of this all (though the sheer pleasure of perfume leaves hardly any room for justification!) is my choice to make perfumery my profession.

Yesterday afternoon, I was visiting an activist friend of mine, and saw her album of Adbusters’ Spoof Ads. The ones that caught my eyes the most were, of course, their Calvin Klein driven criticism on modern fashion culture. Social and cultural messages put aside, these are profoundly made that they also show the bordering-on-madness connection between art and obsession. I must admit I never made the connection between the full bodied, luscious sweetness of obsession which is bordering on a syrupy oiliness, and the anorexic model. Unless, of course, the perfume is designed as a virtual substitute to a butterscotch cheesecake. I find it quite disturbing to be honest. So I have decided to include my impressions of Obsession as my thoughts for the day, just to make my point of how there is so little connection at times between the perfume’s marketing image and the perfume’s real nature.
That, of course, should be explored by the wearer (aka consumer, hopefully not brain washed by than) and evaluated based on their own olfactory repertoire and experience. This is when one needs to escape Calvin Klein and realize their potential as thinking and feeling individuals.